Rudolf Komorek

Rudolf Komorek, around 1915

Rudolf Komorek SDB (born October 11, 1890 in Bielitz , Austrian Silesia , † December 11, 1949 in São José dos Campos , Brazil ) was an Austrian Salesian of Don Bosco and a missionary .

Life

Komorek decided to become a priest and went to seminary in 1909. In 1914 he was ordained a priest of the diocese of Breslau . During the First World War he was a military chaplain in the hospital and on the front lines. In Trento he was taken prisoner in Italy.

After the war his vocation to religious life matured and in 1922 he entered the novitiate of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Klecza Dolna with the aim of becoming a missionary . In October 1924 he went to Brazil to initially work as a pastor in São Feliciano for the Polish emigrants. He worked from 1929 to 1934 as parish vicar of Niterói in the pilgrimage church Maria, Hilfe der Christisten , then from 1934 to 1936 in Luiz Alves and in Santa Catarina for the Italian and Polish immigrants. In 1936 he was confessor and teacher of the aspirants of the Salesian Order in Lavrinhas . The polyglot and inculturation minded Komorek always worked among the poor, disadvantaged, sick and dying. Finally, he himself came sick to São José dos Campos as the last station, where he worked as a pastor for eight years before he died there and was buried.

Komorek died in the reputation of holiness, which is why the process of beatification was opened on January 31, 1964 . On April 6, 1995, Pope John Paul II made him a venerable servant of God .

The central cemetery of San José dos Campos, Jabaquara, a district of São Paulo and Vila Santa Rosa (Belo Horizonte) was named after Komorek .

Web links

• Biography on sdb.org (Spanish)
• Blog da Causa de Beatificação (português)
• Biography on colledonbosco.it (Italian)